Just Killing
by J. D. Dunsany
Summary: The island of Korthos faces sahuagin invaders and cultist infiltrators.  A white-haired halfling and her elven hireling encounter a group of Devourer disciples as they leave a ruined aqueduct complex.


**This is a short DDO-based piece about one of my characters on the Argonessen server. I make no claims for it being a great work of literature, particularly. But I do think it nails Ghienna's character pretty well. This is how I imagine her being. :)**

At the end of the ruined aqueduct, Varn waited. Just ahead of him, Soros and Kal crouched in the shadows, arrows nocked. The set of their shoulders and the stillness of their heads told him they were just as alert as he was, waiting for their moment to strike. For over an hour, they had tracked the white-haired interloper and her elven companion as they'd cut a bloody path through the heart of Korthos Island. The murderess' journey had taken her here – to the ruined, partially flooded control complex of the island's ruined water system.

Varn smiled grimly.

She was after the prisoners. Of course, she was. Although the halfling had proven herself a capable warrior, he doubted she could take on the cabal of priestesses and cultists that lurked within the dilapidated building. He and his fellow disciples were here as insurance. That was all.

Momentarily, he allowed his attention to relax and his mind conjured up an image of the island as it would be. As it _should_ be. The close, stifling heat that sought to smother him like a funeral shroud would be gone. The teeming life that infested the island would be extinguished. The throbbing whine of the insects, the high-pitched trilling of the birds, the rustling of fleshy leaves in the hot cloying breeze: all would be silenced. When the Devourer triumphed, Korthos would be sheathed in the brilliant purity of ice and snow, and death would reign in the brittle stillness of a perfect eternal frost.

And, Varn thought happily, there was nothing the little killer and her elven friend could do about it.

* * *

><p>The tunnels stank. Of mildew and stagnant water mostly, but also of fresh blood and the salty, slime-coated lumps of flesh that comprised sahuagin guts. Not for the first time since agreeing to work for the strange, white-haired halfling, Dryad Willowisp found herself questioning the wisdom of taking up the adventuring life in the first place. Even the role of an acolyte in the catacombs of Stormreach would be preferable to this. She grimaced, as her foot squelched in something that was semi-solid and foul-smelling.<p>

Determinedly, she turned her attention to the ragged, half-starved villagers next to her.

"Just a few more yards," she said quietly. "Stay together."

The villagers, hollow eyes staring out from dirt-smeared faces, gave brief, jerky nods. A couple of them muttered thanks in broken voices.

Pursing her lips, Dryad stared ahead of them. Almost lost in the shadows at the far end of the tunnel, the reason she was even in this place stalked ever onwards, a faintly glowing sword clutched in her slender hand. The elf quickened her pace, catching up with the halfling in a few seconds.

"Ghienna," she said, urgently. "Ghienna! Wait up!"

The halfling turned to look up at her curiously.

"What?"

"The villagers. They're starting to tire. They've been through hell and…" Dryad sighed. "Look, you've done so much for them already, but they're looking for leadership. For inspiration. I…"

"I'm not good with speeches." There was no anger or exasperation in the halfling's voice – just a flat expression of fact. Ghienna's slate grey eyes seemed to sparkle for the briefest of moments. "Perhaps you should give it a try. Clerics like speeches, I've heard."

Dryad felt her face flush. "You hired me to heal!" she retorted hotly. "These people have spent the host knows how long in this place. You're expecting them to trek through hostile territory back to the village and…"

"Alright. Alright." The halfling's eyes _were_ twinkling now. Dryad was sure of it. "You've sort of made my point."

Biting off a caustic response, the elf watched Ghienna march back to the group of villagers huddled in the shadows.

"Right," the diminutive fighter said, waiting a split second until she was sure she had the attention of every member of the little band. "We're close to the entrance here. Me and the elf are going to scout ahead. Make sure the coast's clear. So stay put. We've cleared out the fishmen from the complex – and the loonies who follow them. So you should be alright." She nodded. "Try not to die and you'll be fine."

She turned and walked back towards the shaft of daylight spilling in through the broken grating, ignoring the look on Dryad's face.

"The 'elf'?" muttered the cleric. "The 'elf'? How long have we been working together? My name's Dryad, Ghienna!"

Shrugging her small shoulders, the halfling fighter clambered onto the lip of the entrance pipe.

"Sorry," she said without turning round. "I'm not good with names either."

Dryad joined her, staring out at the ruined aqueduct and the Korthos landscape beyond it. "And what _are_ you good at?"

"Killing," said the halfling, flatly. "Just killing."

* * *

><p>There was movement just inside the ruptured grating that comprised the entrance into the old aqueduct complex. Varn tensed and then bit back an oath, as he saw a flash of white hair. Ahead of him, he saw Soros, the cultist nearest the entranceway, bring his bow up. Varn's jaw had clenched involuntarily. How many of his fellow believers had occupied the complex? Twenty? Thirty?<p>

The halfling had to die.

Swiftly, he gave the soft bird call that was the signal to attack. Soros loosed instantly and Kal's shot followed quickly after. Narrowing his eye and taking careful aim, Varn brought his own bow up, drawing the string back, feeling the muscles of his forearms cord with tension. The halfling stood on top of the large outlet pipe, her hair streaming out behind her in the warm breeze. Varn watched Soros' arrow fall just short and Kal's stick in the small shield the halfling had instinctively raised. She had to die. The fletching of the arrow stroked his cheek for a moment and then it was gone with only a serpentine hissing to mark its passage.

"Archers!"

Ghienna looked at the black-fletched arrow quivering in her shield for a moment. "You don't say."

She leaped back from the edge of the pipe, almost losing her footing in the process. The movement saved her life as another arrow slid past her to clatter harmlessly against the stonework of the complex.

Urgently, she scanned the surrounding landscape, searching for her attackers.

"The aqueduct!" yelled Dryad.

"Got them," muttered Ghienna. Another arrow sped towards her and she twisted out of the way. Even so, it grazed her thigh, leaving a long red-edged rent in her armour. She grimaced and hoped the arrow hadn't been poisoned. She glanced across at Dryad. "Got my back?"

The cleric smiled tightly. "Always."

"Then follow me."

Ghienna flung herself off the pipe and into the culvert it had once supplied. There were three cultists stationed in the old aqueduct that had, at some time in the island's history, spanned the gorge and transported water from one end of the island to the other. Now it was broken and dry, home only to rats and spiders. And, it seemed, three devotees of the Cult of the Devourer.

Another arrow. Ghienna ducked. And another. She rolled forward. The first of the archers was a few yards away from her. There was no way he could miss. He nocked the arrow to his bow, pulled the string back tight. He loosed.

But, the halfling was in constant motion. Using the near wall of the aqueduct as a springboard, she launched herself forwards, sword flashing in the hazy sunlight. The arrow zipped along the lip of the wall and span off over the side. The cultist brought his bow up in a protective gesture but it was far too late. Ghienna's sword crashed into the his chest. With a wet gurgling sound, he fell to the ground and the floor of the aqueduct became slick with blood.

Ghienna was already moving. The second disciple loosed two arrows in quick succession. One flew wide, but the second struck Ghienna in the stomach. Scowling, she glared at the cultist even as her mouth filled with blood. She spat it out contemptuously.

"Cleric?"

From behind her, she heard the sound of Dryad's voice and a familiar warmth suffused her body. She straightened and, wincing, broke the arrow off, leaving an inch-long stub of wood protruding from her armour.

"You don't have one of these, do you?" She indicated the elf with a flick of her head and grinned savagely. "Oh dear."

Her sword flicked out and, with a sudden twist of her wrist, she knocked the bow from the cultist's hand. A split second later, a flashing barb of light thudded into his chest, unbalancing him and sending him sprawling against the aqueduct's far wall. Ghienna followed up Dryad's casting with a brutal hack that smashed the cultist's collar bone and sent him spinning over the edge of the aqueduct down to the valley floor below.

Slowly, the two adventurers turned to face the final cultist.

* * *

><p>Varn dropped his bow as the two women stalked towards him. His dream of an ice-sheathed Korthos glittered in his memory for a brief moment before vanishing like the morning mist. He would never see the Devourer's plans for the island come to fruition. Only the grey wastes of Dolurrh awaited him now.<p>

But he would not go quietly.

Drawing a thin dagger, he spat at the approaching halfling whose lank frost-white hair seemed to mock his icy visions of the Devourer's ultimate triumph.

"Come then!" he snarled.

The culvert was too narrow for the women to flank him. By the Devourer, he would take one of them with him!

Then the halfling charged.

* * *

><p>Ghienna wiped her blade clean methodically. The final cultist lay dead at her feet, the ragged gash in his side leaking dark fluid onto the aged stone. He had been tougher than his two fellow cultists, true. But not by much.<p>

She glanced at Dryad, who was casting a healing spell on herself, the deep scratch on her hand closing quickly.

Casually, Ghienna kicked out at the cultist's corpse and the elven cleric scowled.

"What?"

Dryad straightened, her expression sombre. "Where I come from, the dead are treated with respect. Even the remains of an enemy are accorded..."

Ghienna raised an eyebrow. "Really?" She turned back to the cultist's body and savagely kicked it again. And again. And again. Dryad watched it slide off the end of the broken aqueduct, falling through the warm Korthos air. A few seconds later, it hit the ground below with a soft, muted thud.

The halfling turned back to the cleric and her eyes were blazing with an intensity the elf had not seen before.

"This man and his lunatic friends would enslave men, women and children, would sacrifice them to their insane god, would see this island entombed in a sepulchre of ice." Ghienna licked her lips and she looked around at the green hills, the lush vegetation, the soaring trees. "Let me tell you what we're going to do, cleric. We're going to take those villagers back home and then we're going to come back here and find some more madmen and fish things to kill. My blade, your magic – that's all the respect they deserve."

With that, she shouldered her way past the elf.

Dryad sighed. "I thought you didn't do speeches, halfling!"

"What can I say?" came the reply. "You must be rubbing off on me."

Shaking her head gently, Dryad watched her stalk away for a moment. "Ghienna Winterfell," she muttered softly, "you must be the most difficult contract I've ever had. But I will follow you. By all the Sovereign Host, little one, I will follow you."


End file.
